This chapter is from the book

Stocking iPhone with Audio and Video from the iTunes Store Application

Listening to Music

Finding and Listening to Podcasts

Finding and Watching Video

Customizing iPhone for iPod

One of the best things about iPhone is that it is a fully featured iPod that you can use to listen to music, podcasts, audiobooks, and other audio. You can also watch movies, TV shows, and other video on iPhone’s high-resolution screen. iPhone has an awesome iPod interface that makes working with audio and video easy and fun.

Using iTunes to Add Audio and Video Content to iPhone

Before you can listen to audio and watch video, you have to move content onto iPhone. One way to do this is to add content to your iTunes Library and then move that content from iTunes to iPhone.

The most common ways to add content to the iTunes Library are by importing audio CDs or purchasing content from, renting movies from, and subscribing to podcasts in the iTunes Store.

After you have stocked your iTunes Library, you can create playlists to organize content.

When your content is ready, sync iPhone with the iTunes Library so that the content you want to be available is moved from the Library onto iPhone.

>>>step-by-step: Importing Audio CDs to the iTunes Library

Importing audio CDs is one of the most useful ways to get music and other audio content into iTunes.

Launch iTunes by double-clicking its application icon, choosing it on the Windows Start menu, or clicking it on the Mac’s Dock.

Insert a CD into the computer. iTunes connects to the Internet and identifies the CD. When that’s done, the import process starts. You don’t have to do anything else because iTunes manages the import process for you. When the process finishes, iTunes plays an alert sound and ejects the disc.

Insert the next CD you want to import. After it has been ejected, insert the next CD and so on until you’ve added all the CDs you want to the iTunes Library.

>>>Go Further: Tagging Your Music

To be able to browse and find music in your iTunes Library, you must tag (label) the tracks you import. When iTunes finds a CD’s information on the Internet, it takes care of this for you, including the album artwork associated with that CD (as long as the music is available in the iTunes Store).

If iTunes doesn’t find information for CD content you import, you should add tags manually. Do this by selecting a track and choosing File, Get Info. Use the Info dialog to update the track’s tags, including name, album, artist, and even artwork. If you select multiple tracks before you open the Info dialog, you can update the tags on the selected tracks at the same time.

>>>step-by-step: Purchasing Audio and Video from the iTunes Store

The iTunes Store has a very large selection of music, movies, TV shows, and other content that you can preview, purchase, and download. To do this, you must have an Apple Store account, also known as an Apple ID (you can preview content without an Apple ID). If you have an AIM/AOL screen name, you can use that as an Apple ID (you have to provide credit card information to be able to use that account to make purchases in the iTunes Store).

Click iTunes Store on the Source list. iTunes connects to the iTunes Store, and you see the Home page.

If you don’t have an Apple ID or want to create a new one, click Create New Account and follow the onscreen instructions to obtain an Apple ID. Then use your new ID to log in to the iTunes Store.

When you want to purchase and download content, click the Buy button. For example, when you are viewing music, this is the Buy Song or Buy Album button. When you are viewing TV shows, it is the Buy Episode or Buy Season button. The content you purchase is downloaded to your computer and added to your iTunes Library.

Click the Purchased playlist on the iTunes Source list to see content you’ve downloaded from the iTunes Store.

>>>Go Further: Buy Now or Buy Later

iTunes enables you to shop with a shopping cart into which all the content you select gets moved. When you are ready to buy, you move to your shopping cart and check out. You can also buy with one click, meaning that you can click the Buy Now button to immediately purchase or download content.

A preference setting determines which method you use. To configure your iTunes shopping experience, open the Store pane of the iTunes Preferences dialog. When you use the shopping cart, you see the Add button instead of the Buy button. After you add content to the shopping cart, you select the cart on the iTunes Source list to complete the purchase and download processes.

>>>step-by-step: Renting Movies from the iTunes Store

You can also rent movies from the iTunes Store. When you rent a movie, you can watch it as many times as you’d like within a 24-hour period (starting as soon as you play the rented content the first time) within a 30-day rental window. After either the 24-hour viewing or 30-day rental period expires (whichever comes first), the rented movie is removed from iTunes (or your iPhone) automatically. To rent a movie, follow these steps.

Move into the iTunes Store and click the Movies link.

Browse for movies in which you might be interested.

Click a movie’s link to see detailed information about it, including the cost to rent it.

Enter your Apple ID or AOL screen name and password and click Rent. The movie is downloaded to the iTunes Library.

To access movies you’ve rented, click the Rented Movies source. (Be sure not to play a rented movie until you’re sure you will be able to watch all of it within 24 hours because the viewing period starts as soon as you play it.)

Unlike other content you get from the iTunes Store, rented movies can be on only one device at a time. So when you move a rented movie from the iTunes Library onto iPhone, it disappears from the iTunes Library (you can move it back if you choose).

>>>step-by-step: Subscribing to Podcasts in the iTunes Store

Podcasts are radio-like audio or video episodes that you can subscribe and listen to or watch. Even better, most podcasts are free.

Click the Podcasts source in the Source list. You see all the podcasts to which you’ve subscribed. The number next to the Podcasts source indicates the number of episodes of the podcasts to which you have subscribed but not listened.

Building Audio and Video Smart Playlists

A smart playlist does the same basic thing as a playlist, which is to collect content that you want to listen to or watch and to move onto iPhone. Instead of placing content in a playlist manually, a smart playlist adds content automatically based on criteria you define.

Select the parameter by which you want to limit the playlist in the first menu; this menu defaults to items. Your choices include the number of items, the time the playlist will play (in minutes or hours), or the size of the files the playlist contains (in MB or GB).

Type the data appropriate for the limit you selected in the Limit to box. For example, if you selected minutes in the menu, type the maximum length of the playlist in minutes in the box.

Select how you want iTunes to choose the songs it includes based on the limit you selected by using the selected by menu. For example, to have iTunes include tracks you’ve added to the Library most recently, select most recently added.

If you want the playlist to include only songs whose check box in the Content pane is checked, check the Match only checked items check box.

If you want the playlist to be dynamic, meaning that iTunes updates its contents over time, check the Live updating check box. If you uncheck this check box, the playlist includes only those songs that meet the playlist’s conditions when you create it.

Click OK. You move to the Source list; the smart playlist is added and selected, and its name is ready for you to edit. Also the songs in your Library that match the criteria in the playlist are added to it, and the current contents of the playlist are shown.

As you make selections on the Attribute menu and type conditions in the Condition box, iTunes attempts to automatically match what you type to tags in your Library. For example, if your Library includes Elvis music and you use Artist as an attribute, iTunes will enter Elvis Presley in the Condition box for you when you start typing Elvis.

Check Please!

Each item in iTunes has a check box. You use this to tell iTunes if you want it to include the item (such as a song or podcast) in whatever you happen to be doing. If you uncheck this box, iTunes ignores the item.

It’s Not All Good

The iPhone’s storage capacity has improved over time (when the 3G was released, there were 8GB and 16GB models, which was a significant improvement over the first generation’s 4GB or 8GB models). Although this is impressive for such a small device, it’s not adequate to store all the content in large iTunes libraries, especially when a library includes lots of video. The only way to deal with this limitation is to pick and choose the content you want to be available on the iPhone. This isn’t hard, but it is a bit of a nuisance. Hopefully future iPhone versions will include even more storage capacity, such as the 32GB available on the current generation of iPod Touch. Ideally, iPhone users want to be able to store all of their iTunes content on the iPhone, so more memory is better.

>>>step-by-step: Moving Content from the iTunes Library onto iPhone

To move iTunes content onto iPhone, you need to choose the content you want to move there and then synchronize iPhone. You can set up iPhone so that content is moved automatically or manually.

Connect the iPhone to your computer using its USB cable. iPhone is mounted on your computer and appears in the iTunes Source list.

If you have a relatively small amount of content in iTunes, select the All Songs and Playlists option so that iTunes attempts to move all your music onto iPhone. As I mentioned earlier, iPhone has limited storage, so unless you have a library that takes less space than is available on your iPhone, you have to choose the content you want to place on iPhone.

Click the Video tab. In the Rented Movies section, you see the movies you are currently renting.

Click a movie’s right-facing Move button to move it from the iTunes Library onto iPhone. The movie’s icon moves to the right pane of the window, which indicates it will be moved onto the iPhone during the next sync.

Click Apply. iTunes moves the selected content from the Library to iPhone. If there’s enough space on iPhone, then the process continues until all the content has been moved (and you can skip the rest of these steps). If you’ve selected more content than there is room for on iPhone, you see a warning dialog explaining how much content you selected versus how much is available. It also gives you options to remove selected content, such as podcasts.

If you want iTunes to remove content, click Yes; if not, click No. If you elected to let iTunes remove content, the content is removed, and the sync is attempted again. If there still isn’t enough space available or you clicked No, you see another dialog box that explains there isn’t enough room on iPhone.

Use the information in steps 6–28 to decrease the amount of content you selected and then perform the sync again. When the sync is complete, you see the “iPhone sync is complete” message in the iTunes Information window. At the bottom of the window, you see how iPhone’s memory is being used. Also the Apply button becomes the Sync button; it becomes Apply again whenever you make changes to the content you’ve selected to sync.

Wait until the “iPhone sync is complete” message appears in the iTunes Information window located at the top of the iTunes window before removing iPhone from the computer. If you remove it during the sync process, some of the content might not be moved onto iPhone correctly.